By Patrick Yost
Staff Writer

What a difference a week makes for the Morgan County Lady Diamond Dogs.
After coming off a 1-5 week with losses to ranked Greenbriar High School (12-4) and Madison County, the Lady Dogs increased their overall record to 6-7 including shutting down Greenbriar 7-2 at home last Thursday.
The Lady Dogs took care of Monroe Area last Wednesday 6-1 behind strong pitching by Victoria Thomas. Thomas recorded six strikeouts in the contest and the Morgan County defense kept Monroe off the base paths for seven innings. Morgan took control of the game in the third, scoring four runs after the inning was jumpstarted by a Dee Pittman single. With Laree Vanorden at third, Thomas drew a walk and hustled to second base. An errant throw to right field brought in both Vanorden and Thomas. The aggressive base running was a spark Coach Doug Connelly said was missing in last week's contests.
"We became the aggressor. Instead of letting people bring pressure, we took it to them. That was the difference."
Against Greenbriar Thomas again pitched a complete game with one strikeout. She gave up four hits and one earned run and that was enough. "We played good defense," Connelly said. "We kept them off the base paths and that's their game."
Morgan shutout AA Lovett last Saturday behind a six-inning pitching effort by Madison Busbee (five strikeouts). Thomas finished the game at the mound. Morgan recorded no errors in the Lovett game.
Also on Saturday the Diamond Dogs beat AAAA Eastisde 4-1 in a game that was 2-1 in the top of the sixth before Aubrey Cox and Vanorden sealed the contest with back-to-back solo homeruns. Elishia Frierson and and RBI double in the game and Cox added an RBI single.
Morgan heads into its region schedule this week with a game schedule on Tuesday at Elbert County and a home game against North Oconee Thursday.
"They're starting to realize they can be a pretty good team," Connelly said. "We started to turn the corner a little bit last week."

Printed in the August 30, 2012 edition